The decision of Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to relocate the Aarey metro car shed to Kanjurmarg is one of the landmark decisions that will save the pristine green lungs of Mumbai as well as the public exchequer. Shifting the highly polluting metro car shed out of the Aarey is a beginning towards reclaiming forest land from concretisation and commercialisation. The Metro-6 line running from Lokhandwala Complex to Vikhroli and the underground Metro-3 line are intersecting at SEEPZ and the car shed for Metro-6 is being built on the same land at Kanjurmarg. There is no need for laying an additional line. Thus, shifting the Metro 3 car shed to Kanjurmarg will save the taxpayers’ money.
The decision that came in October 2020 is struggling from being implemented. Who is stalling the relocation process and causing delays in the completion of metro projects? Who is responsible for stranding the transport infrastructure of Mumbai and escalating the metro project costs?
Documents accessed through RTI reveal MMRCL and the union government are the real culprits behind resisting the relocation of the metro car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg. The documents show detailed plans about the feasibility and suitability of the Kanjurmarg plot for an integrated metro depot for multiple metro corridors. However, the union government has gone to the court to claim that the entire saltpan lands in the belt, including the 102 acres at Kanjurmarg, belong to its salt department. Whereas the documents accessed through RTI clearly mentions that the metro car depot is on an undisputed plot of Kanjurmarg.
Senior advocate Milind Sathe and advocate Saket Mone, who represented MMRDA, had highlighted financial benefits of constructing the integrated Metro car shed. They had said MMRDA will have to spend additional amount of Rs2,328 crore on land acquisition and Rs1,600 crore as operational costs, if the integrated car shed at Kanjurmarg was stayed by HC. They had also pointed out that a loss of Rs2.5 crore to Rs3 crore per day will be caused to public exchequer, if the ongoing work of metro car shed at Kanjurmarg was stayed.
We request MMRCL and the union government to kindly allow for smooth relocation of the metro car shed 3 from the Aarey forest to Kanjurmarg plot and thereby bring respite to the citizens of the fourth most polluted city in the world by retaining its only surviving forest that ushers cooler temperatures, fresh air, fresh waters, rich biodiversity, and a thriving tribal culture.
Please refer to the video for more details.